Taste Formation in Classical Political Economy

The Anthem Companion to David Ricardo, 2023

The aims of this essay are twofold: (i) to understand Ricardo's economics in relation to other classical political economists, especially Smith, Sismondi, and Malthus and (ii) to provide an alternative conceptual architecture for better understanding contemporary societies. Thus, it serves as a companion in the above two ways. While the locus of discussion is Ricardo's explanation of relative prices and income distribution (value theory), this shall be complemented by a discussion of his approach to economics and his theory of economic growth. In Ricardo's index to the Principles, there are five entries on Malthus, 1 one entry on Sismondi, 2 and over 20 entries on Smith. Ricardo writes approvingly of Malthus for presenting "to the of "Political Economy" but notes that they have not grasped the principles of rent and therefore that of income distribution (Works, I, 5-6). 3 The essay is organized as follows. Section 2 highlights the role of value theory in Ricardo's political economy and for economics in general. Section 3 provides an overview of Ricardo's method. Section 4 outlines Ricardo's critical engagement with use value and exchange value. Section 5 discusses Ricardo's theory of value and distribution. Section 6 engages with Ricardo's growth theory and the role of demand therein. Section 7 offers a conclusion. 2. The Raison d'etre of Value Theory Before stating the raison d'etre of value theory, it is necessary to present the aims or "objects" of political economy as laid out by Smith. Political oeconomy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign. (Smith 1776, IV.1). The discussion of the social surplus is found in all the classical political economists, including William Petty and Richard Cantillon. The "gross revenue" is comprised of wages, profits, and rents whereas the "net revenue" comprises profits and rents (Works, I, 347-8). In the Wealth of Nations, Smith had included in "neat revenue" the "subsistence" of the inhabitants (Smith 1776, II.ii.5) thereby rendering it a non-strictly surplus conception since by definition subsistence implies necessary or essential and surplus implies non-necessary or non-essential (see also Aspromourgos 2009, 163). However, it must be noted that the conception of subsistence in classical political economy is more cultural than biological. Ricardo makes this qualification in the third edition of the Principles: "more is generally allotted to the labourer under the name of wages, than the absolutely necessary expenses of production" (Works, I, 348n); this suggests that a part of wages may be treated as "net revenue". In any case, Ricardo's definition of "net revenue" is more conceptually coherent than Smith's (for a succinct discussion on this matter, see Aspromourgos 2015, 473). Since both the aggregate output and the social surplus are made up of heterogenous commodities, a coherent economic accounting requires the knowledge of their prices. If an economy produces commodities y1, y2 and y3, the aggregate output Y=p1y1+p2y2+p3y3 where p1, of taxation warrants a clear theoretical understanding of the social surplus, which in turn necessitates a coherent value/price theory (see also King 2013, 80). More generally, it may be stated that "the analysis of value and distribution" provides "the foundation for the analysis of accumulation" (Bharadwaj 1989, 2). 3. Ricardo's Method Ricardo's method of doing political economy can be clearly grasped from the following chapters: 'On Natural and Market Price' (Chapter VII), 'Value and Riches, their Distinctive Properties' (Chapter XX), and 'On Gross and Net Revenue' (Chapter XXVI). Of these, we have already briefly engaged with the third method-the surplus approach-in the previous section.

A Brief History of Economic Thought

The evolution of economic thought can be traced back from its beginnings in classical antiquity up to the present day. In this book, Professor Alessandro Roncaglia offers a clear, concise and updated version of his award-winning The Wealth of Ideas, studying the development of economic thought through perspectives and debates on the economy and society over time. With chapters on prominent economic theorists, including William Petty, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes, as well as on other important figures and key debates of each period, Roncaglia critically evaluates the foundations of the marginalist-neoclassical (scarcity-utility) approach in comparison to the Classical-Keynes approach. A comprehensive guide to the history of economic thought, this book will be of value not only to undergraduate and postgraduate students studying economic thought but also to any readers desiring to study how economics has evolved up to the present day. alessandro roncaglia is Professor of Economics at Sapienza University of Rome. He is a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Editor of PSL Quarterly Review and Moneta e Credito, and was previously President of the Società Italiana degli Economisti. His numerous publications, translated into various languages, include The Wealth of Ideas, also published by Cambridge University Press (2005).

University of Chicago Press eBooks, 2000

Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Consumption, 2018

This chapter reexamines foundational philosophical controversies about the meaning of taste and reflects on how tastes have been understood by sociologists. It argues these insights, while revealing the social patterning of tastes, have also obscured the extent to which tastes are bound up both with sensory experience and with the process of learning the management of the body and its responses to the world.. It concludes that, while the substantive weight of the sociological study of tastes has concerned itself with questions of the aesthetic and to the identification of different dispositions held by individuals and groups in relation to aesthetic judgment, there is value, in understanding contemporary cultures, to building up those accounts of taste which are more oriented to questions of the ascetic and to the role of restraint and training in the development and cultivation of tastes.

Social Thought and Research, 1990

If you are on the left, and especially if you are a Marxist, you are not supposed to be desirous-of sex, cars, or Cuisinarts. An austere life is recommended for the revolutionary, who is to be both lean and mean-sort of an ascetic Rambo. Those who accumulate goods beyond their basic needs are regarded with suspicion and often loathing. But what are basic needs? Remember that Marx, himself, said that human needs are infmitely expandable (Marx 1973/1844). And remember, too, that one central goal of Marx's revolution was to enable the proletariat to live like the bourgeoisie. Even so, consumption is still in bad odor on the left. Who in their right minds are not distressed by the fact that the publisher/financier Malcolm Forbes spent between $2-3 million for his Moroccan birthday party in 1989? The excesses of Donald Trump are legend, but he has his counterparts in Japan, England, West Germany, and Switzerland. There are greedy people all over the globe; it takes no effort to find them. It is easy to condemn consumption, not just because of what people do now, but because of its history. In the popular mind, Rome fell because a ruling class was more concerned with circuses than production. In the court cultures of early modern Europe, aristocratic men and women were encouraged to consume with style and grace. When consumption became excessive, it was linked to moral excess, causing the (often Puritanical) lower orders to look upon the unfolding spectacle of consumption with disgust. And, finally, consumption is seen as a feminine activity, and therefore one to be treated as frivolous and meaningless (Mukerji 1989, p. 1462). Marx viewed consumption negatively because it led to alienation among people. The more you consume, the less human you are. In a nicely paradoxical relationship, each act of consumption eats away at the soul. How? Marx explains, in his well-known discussion of commodity fetishism (Marx 1977/1896). In capitalist societies, workers sell their labor power, and produce commodities, over which they have no control, for exchange. Commodities, be they cars or refrigerators, appear to have intrinsic characteristics, such as weight, color, and size, and they also have a price. Prices are determined by market forces (supply and demand, the cost of labor and materials). Price determines what gets produced as well as how goods are distributed. Goods which bring a high price/profit will be produced, as opposed to those which might meet a greater social need. Prices determine who gets what. The wages paid to the men or women who sell their labor power, determine how much power people have, how much they can buy of the very goods they have produced. Thus, relationships between people are determined by the prices of commodities. Relationships between people-the flesh and blood that 46 Consumption and Marxist Class Theory gratification and even a sense of self worth, even if those on the left don't